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"Within the hour" and "wherever you are": Exploring the promises of digital healthcare apps
Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies. Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Centre for Demographic and Ageing Research (CEDAR).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8758-5704
Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Social Work.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0427-7248
Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0020-2609
2021 (English)In: Journal of Digital Social Research (JDSR), E-ISSN 2003-1998, Vol. 3, no 3, p. 32-59Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The use of healthcare apps for medical advice is becoming increasingly common. This paper explores apps that offer interaction with medical experts. Working from the supposition that digital technologies are intimately entangled in their cultural context, we argue that the apps do more than just neutrally mediate contacts and offer medical and psychological advice. The article addresses the cultural dimensions of healthcare apps and answers questions about the ways in which such apps contribute to forming changing notions of what “healthcare” and being a “patient” entail. Three popular Swedish apps and their marketing material is studied using a discursive interface analysis of the apps’ affordances. The results show that the apps significantly contribute to producing a marketable narrative about app health care that includes accessibility, security/safety and personalisation, and which is partly produced as an alternative to what is offered by Swedish public health care. The results further show that this narrative primarily represents and addresses users who are young, busy, urban consumers of care – partly contrasting policy expectations and hopes.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Umeå University , 2021. Vol. 3, no 3, p. 32-59
Keywords [en]
healthcare apps, discursive interface analysis, affordances, e-health, digital health care, critical digital health studies, patient positions
National Category
Ethnology Media and Communications
Research subject
Ethnology; media and communication studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-188972DOI: 10.33621/jdsr.v3i3.77OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-188972DiVA, id: diva2:1606905
Part of project
Digital landscapes of care: The digitalisation of Swedish health care and its significance for older patients in rural areas, Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare
Funder
Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and WelfareAvailable from: 2021-10-28 Created: 2021-10-28 Last updated: 2021-10-29Bibliographically approved

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Lundgren, Anna SofiaLindberg, JensCarlsson, Eric

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Lundgren, Anna SofiaLindberg, JensCarlsson, Eric
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Department of culture and media studiesCentre for Demographic and Ageing Research (CEDAR)Department of Social Work
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Journal of Digital Social Research (JDSR)
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CiteExportLink to record
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  • apa
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Output format
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